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2014 UA Issued Awards on Air China (CA) Are Mysteriously Being Canceled (Hacked?)

Old Apr 21, 2014, 11:37 am
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Last edit by: Pat89339
A number of folks with award flights booked on CA (Air China) found their reservations cancelled. The only notification of cancellation appears to be an email in from UA written in chinese. UA reps confirmed that cancellations were made online and CA award space was no longer available. UA can rebook on other flights when award space is available.

It is plausible that a third party with access to PNR and pax name on the flight can fraudulently cancel an existing itinerary and book the reopened award seat.

Affected FlyerTalk members with links to where in this discussion they posted their experiences include:
  1. MikeMpls
  2. nihaoa
  3. lewende Reported 4 friends with this issue
  4. ordbkk
  5. twebst
  6. kb1992
  7. litesleeper
  8. zombietooth
  9. critten Reported 2/3 confirmations (3 people CA Business class) cancelled at the same time
  10. skyvanman Also 1 friend with the issue
  11. chris1234
  12. atiger29
  13. bubble o bill
  14. genemk2
  15. jefftiger
  16. CuddlyFlyer
  17. gpeso8
  18. imm2b
  19. acf1270
  20. dgxoxo
  21. ACM two passengers
Originally Posted by ordbkk
It seems everybody wants to see the message.. here was mine:
united.com 通知 - 航班预订取消
2014年4月17日 (星期四)
united.com | 优惠促销 | 预订 | 赢取前程万里 (MileagePlus) 奖励里程 | 我的帐户

先生 ORDBKK
您的预订 MYRES123 已取消,我们已收到您的退款申请。申请信用卡退款需 7 个工作日。如果信用卡退款未在一个付款周期内寄出,请联系信用卡公司。对于包括现金退款在内的 所有其他形式 的付款,需要 20 个工作日。

如需详细信息或查看退款的状态,请访问 united.com 并提供您的机票号码。

感谢您使用 united.com

电子邮件信息
请不要使用回复地址回复此邮件。
此电子邮件中的信息仅供原接收人使用。
如果您遇到技术问题,请通过电子邮件或电话联系 united.com 服务支持。
通知:机票取消确认
电子邮件地址: ORDBKK@MYEMAIL

Originally Posted by ordbkk View Post
For tracking purposes, I went through the 27 pages of this thread and compiled a list of those affected:

MikeMpls
nihaoa
lewende (reported 4 friends with this issue)
ordbkk
twebst
kb1992
litesleeper
zombietooth
critten
skyvanman (also 1 friend with the issue)
jefftiger (but, happened during October 2013)

So we're at 13 people affected, although some like critten have had multiple trips canceled.
From what I understand, all of these occurred in the last 3 weeks.
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2014 UA Issued Awards on Air China (CA) Are Mysteriously Being Canceled (Hacked?)

Old Mar 31, 2014, 8:39 pm
  #31  
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Programs: SQ, QF, UA, CO, DL
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Smile

Originally Posted by jsl42
I strangely got flight cancelation notice from United last month in Spanish. (Which, thank god, I read)
Originally Posted by greg99
All of my flight delay/gate change messages have been coming to me in Spanish for the last couple of months.
Originally Posted by mahasamatman
You are a very trusting person. My SOP to receiving any email from any source in a foreign language is to report it as SPAM or phishing and delete it without opening. If United is sending these emails, it's exactly the same as sending no notification at all.

The fact that it allegedly came from United is a red herring. It's trivial to spoof a return address.
All my flight updates have been coming in Spanish, too! Does not matter though because I get faster updates from tripit, and in English! I also get the occasional marketing letter from ual.com in Japanese but that may be because I had a mailing address in Japan for seven years.

OP, really glad that everything worked out for you and hope you have a great trip. Granted things are not perfect with United, but it has to be challenging working with so many different airlines in a large network and some of those airlines change their flights, timing, and flight numbers pretty frequently. I had difficulty checking in for an ET flight issued by UA because ET had changed the flight number shortly after the ticket was issued. These minor inconveniences are nothing to me compared to the advantage of earning and redeeming across the Star network.
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Old Mar 31, 2014, 9:59 pm
  #32  
 
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Originally Posted by uanj
These minor inconveniences are nothing to me compared to the advantage of earning and redeeming across the Star network.
^

Saturday my wife lost her f/c seat on an RJ to LAX due to downsizing by United Airlines (actually Skywest).

United Airlines (actually a new t/a) gave her a b/p for Eva Air and told her to pass the ticket counter @ the Bradley terminal and head straight to the gate. WRONG,TSA sent her back to Eva.

United Airlines
checked her bags all the way thru to KKC (Khon Kaen) via BKK and informed her that her overweight luggage would be NO PROBLEM as she was a 1K/Gold BIG shot. Actually TG put the brakes on this theory after she cleared customs and rechecked in at the domestic terminal. Other factors made this work out in the end, however.

So, as stated above, minor inconveniences will happen, and three languages were involved (English, Chinese, and Thai) but when my wife finally arrived at her village all she could do was rave about her flights and the service extended to her.

Just making it half way around the world, on her own, with the Star network looking out for her, every step of the way, and with all of the recent headlines of people not being able to get straight answers about their loved one's, makes me glad that I stuck with UA the past 18 years. ^
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Old Apr 1, 2014, 4:53 am
  #33  
 
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Originally Posted by MikeMpls
We had an award trip to Australia booked for the 2nd half of May, outbound in coach on UA, return in business class on China Air.

Received an email today from United -- in Chinese. I don't read Chinese.

Logged into our accounts and found that the itinerary had been canceled, leaving us holding the bag on $1K in nonrefundable domestic Australian flights on Qantas & JetStar, plus some hotel reservations.

This has to be the absolute worst customer service example I've ever experienced in the reservations department.
Horrible! Mandarin or Canton?
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Old Apr 1, 2014, 6:56 am
  #34  
 
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This thread is like going to a restaurant, getting the bill, being charged for an additional steak and then going on Yelp from your phone while there writing a horrible review and then asking the waitress to take the mistake off the bill.
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Old Apr 1, 2014, 8:09 am
  #35  
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Originally Posted by MikeMpls
Yes, was SYD-PEK-LAX on May 29-30.
Ouch. I initially had that for my return from OZfest. So glad i changed to TG earlier
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Old Apr 1, 2014, 8:18 am
  #36  
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Originally Posted by JVPhoto
This thread is like going to a restaurant, getting the bill, being charged for an additional steak and then going on Yelp from your phone while there writing a horrible review and then asking the waitress to take the mistake off the bill.
Not quite. More like getting a bill in Chinese in a NYC steakhouse, and have to ask the server to translate for you.
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Old Apr 1, 2014, 11:03 am
  #37  
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Originally Posted by LaserSailor
Horrible! Mandarin or Canton?
It's an e-mail--there's no difference. Mandarin and Cantonese are mutually unintelligible dialects, not actually different languages. That's why you often see Chinese movies subtitled in Chinese.
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Old Apr 1, 2014, 11:26 am
  #38  
 
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Originally Posted by Loren Pechtel
It's an e-mail--there's no difference. Mandarin and Cantonese are mutually unintelligible dialects, not actually different languages. That's why you often see Chinese movies subtitled in Chinese.
Got it. Like Arabic and Hebrew.
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Old Apr 1, 2014, 11:34 am
  #39  
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Simplified or traditional?
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Old Apr 1, 2014, 2:51 pm
  #40  
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Posts: 3,386
Originally Posted by greg99
All of my flight delay/gate change messages have been coming to me in Spanish for the last couple of months.
Si mi muchacho....it's a bad sign, because, the Spanish notifications presage step 2 of those "changes that you will like." Next up, UA MP will claim - and become -

:-: mejor en su clase :-:
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Old Apr 9, 2014, 2:39 pm
  #41  
 
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United award tickets cancelled without my knowledge - data breach?

In January I made two separate F award reservations using UA miles on-line from China to US, all operated by Air China, with 70,000 miles/$ 40.50 each. I received emails from United for the eTicket Itinerary and Receipt. For the peace of mind, I also called Air China, and they were able to see all the reservations.

To my surprise, yesterday evening (04/08) I received three emails from United written in Chinese informing me that those reservations were cancelled, and the refunds are in processing. I then immediately logged into my United account and found indeed they were gone—one under the “cancelled” button, and the other one in “Inactive” button, with no miles being deposited into my account. At that time I called United 1K line—the first representative checked for a while, telling me the system told her that “the reservations were cancelled by me from my computer…” Actually I have NEVER touched those reservations since they were confirmed in January, and I even didn’t log into United website yesterday before the incident occurred. She said she cannot do anything and then transferred to web support; web support cannot do anything either then transferred to a supervisor based in Houston. I requested to restore to the original itinerary. It was almost 1130 pm California time, and the supervisor wasn’t friendly and helpful at all, but insisting on either me or someone else logged into my account to have them cancelled, so again there is nothing she can do. During our heated conversion, she reluctantly called Air China US office (actually it was closed at that time), but she refused to call Air China office in China. I was offered UA 888 instead with economy class. So at the end she suggested me to call today to request another supervisor to call Air China to see if they can be of any help. Certainly I will call UA again today. Besides that, I appreciate if you have any suggestion to help have this issue resolved. Thanks.

Last edited by nihaoa; Apr 9, 2014 at 2:41 pm Reason: update
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Old Apr 9, 2014, 3:00 pm
  #42  
 
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It sounds like someone logged into your account and canceled the awards, maybe in an attempt to get the miles redeposited so the thief could then use them.

The first thing I would do is change the password and PIN number on your account. The second thing I would do is try to get UA web support to look at their records to tell you when the log-ins occurred and from where. If you need to, you might be able to use that information to convince UA that you didn't cancel the tickets, and that it was done fraudulently.

Good luck in getting UA and Air China to make this right. Unfortunately, probably the best you can hope for us UA F, assuming that the original Air China flights no longer have F award availability.
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Old Apr 9, 2014, 3:10 pm
  #43  
 
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There was another recent thread on this. I think it has to do with Air China flights that were cancelled -- Air China basically cancelled the reservations instead of re-routing/re-ticketing. Don't have time to re-read that thread, but it may be a good starting place!
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Old Apr 9, 2014, 3:12 pm
  #44  
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Originally Posted by GBadger
There was another recent thread on this. I think it has to do with Air China flights that were cancelled -- Air China basically cancelled the reservations instead of re-routing/re-ticketing. Don't have time to re-read that thread, but it may be a good starting place!
Are you thinking about the ones that were flying from SYD and they got the cancellation notifications in Chinese - when they don't speak Chinese?
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Old Apr 9, 2014, 3:15 pm
  #45  
 
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Originally Posted by wrp96
Are you thinking about the ones that were flying from SYD and they got the cancellation notifications in Chinese - when they don't speak Chinese?
That's the one -- it's linked in my post.
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